In recent years, there has been a growing need for backing up huge amounts of data such as images or moving pictures. Demand has also been growing for media library apparatuses housing large numbers of cartridges containing storage media. For example, tape library apparatuses house large numbers of tape cartridges and can back up large amounts of data at high speed. A tape library apparatus is provided with a plurality of tape drives for writing and reading data to and from the tapes and a conveyance robot for conveying the tape cartridges. It takes out the tape cartridges stored in storage cells in the apparatus by the conveyance robot, conveys them to and sets them in the tape drives, and writes or reads data to and from the tapes there.
To operate such a tape library apparatus, it is necessary to store a large number of tape cartridges in cells in the apparatus. The storage work is performed as follows using cartridge magazines able to hold pluralities of tape cartridges:
First, an operator loads a plurality of cartridges into a magazine.
Next, the operator sets the magazine holding the cartridges in a cartridge access station (CAS) of the tape library apparatus.
Finally, the conveyance robot stores cartridges in storage cells in the apparatus from the magazine set in the cartridge access station.
In this way, to store cartridges in a library apparatus, there is the work of the operator loading a plurality of cartridges into a magazine and loading that magazine into a cartridge loading unit. The cartridges have movable shutters covering the tape entrance/exit parts. Inside of the shutters, leader pins fastened to the front ends of the tapes are attached. Therefore, if an operator carelessly allows a cartridge to drop and gives a shock to the cartridge, the shutter may deform and no longer open or the leader pin may detach from the stopper and fall off. Further, in some cases there will be initial defects in the shutter or leader pin of a cartridge. Discerning such problems in the cartridges was difficult visually. Therefore, cartridge defects were first discovered only after the cartridges were set in the cells in the library apparatus and were conveyed to and set in the tape drives for writing or reading data to or from the tapes.
Note that in apparatuses using disk cartridges, an apparatus has been proposed which detects when a cartridge is loaded in a magazine backward, but this cannot detect cartridge defects as explained above.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Publication (A) No. 9-212977